Fighting to Stay

Submitted by Anna on 12 August, 2013 - 17:48

When I put my hands on her, her energy is deep and quiet: very, very quiet. I search exploring its texture - looking for more but there isn't any. It has a quiet strength that says "that's just the way it is".

I remember her as a little girl. White haired, beautiful. Always wanting a cat for a playmate. Putting her cat in the doll carriage and strolling it down the long driveway. The cat languished in the affection - never lashing out.

Today, at 37, she sits in her wheelchair as close as she can to the TV set. Three cats play at her feet. Diabetes and kidney failure have been daily companions for what seems like an eternity. Her body is having a hard time. Since the age of two she has had diabetes. She talks about her body in the third person and I know this is how she copes. How she holds her spirit separate and strong - fighting to stay.

She always likes to receive Reiki but I, the sceptic, wonder how it does help. Her condition is very advanced - there won't be any miracles. She says, "It feels good". Usually we do a treatment while watching TV. She watches - I listen to her body. An hour goes by.

Afterwards, I prepare to leave. She says, "You know Aunt Anna, I'm really mad at you". Mad at me? How can that be? Aren't I the humanitarian? The do-gooder, the healer? But she pushes on stopping me in my healer tracks.

"Years ago when you were pregnant, you said it was easy to have a child. Well it isn't easy! I couldn't do it and every time I tried diabetes would take it away. I hated you for that remark. You were having your happy life - walking around saying "anyone could do it". I didn't speak as I tried to remember back 18 years at what my arrogant mouth might have quipped. Although I couldn't remember the details, the flavour of it rang true. I knew that I probably had said something of the kind in an off-hand remark.

Slowly the realization of Reiki came into my head. "This is the Reiki working on her", I thought.

"I'm very sorry I hurt your feelings", I said. "I realize I haven't always been the nicest person and I sure wasn't sympathetic to what you were going through. I'm very sorry."

She continued to unleash a torrent of anger: at me, her Mom, and her circumstances. Until finally it was spent. I knew that today the Reiki energy had helped her emotional body -lifting off layers of grief and sadness from the past. At the same time it had shone a light on my shadow-self bringing it briefly into sharp focus.

So when she says the Reiki feels good. I understand. It is working in that deep, quiet space where only the loving Reiki energy can go.

Published in Reiki International Magazine, August/September issue 2004